Ohashiatsu® – The Art of Balancing Touch
This article by Winnie Abraham, based on an interview with Master Ohashi, appeared in DAO Magazine in 1999.
The Shiatsu master OHASHI, who lives in New York, sees his task in the dissemination of traditional healing methods. OHASHIATSU, the art of touch communication, is taught at more than 30 schools worldwide – now also in Austria.
Ohashi means „big bridge“ in Japanese. The center in New York has existed for more than twenty-five years, in which Eastern and Western healing arts and the corresponding philosophies meet, connect, learn from each other and develop further. Every year around 2000 men and women of all ages, from different cultures, with very different educational and professional backgrounds cross this bridge to learn and practice Ohashiatsu.
Margarete Eller was one of them when she found her way to the Ohashi Institute in New York in 1999. The fascination of the simple, the natural encounter with one’s own body and with others, has not let go of her since then. For her, ohashiatsu has become a life principle and part of herself. Back in her adopted home of Vienna, she wants to pass on to other people what she has learned in Ohashi’s courses and in close cooperation with him personally.
„Touch for Peace“ is the institute’s motto.
„I want all people to feel peaceful, happy and healthy, and that will always start with a touch,“ explains Ohashi, who consciously describes what he is doing as „starting an educational process“.
Margarete Eller was one of them when she found her way to the Ohashi Institute in New York in 1999. The fascination of the simple, the natural encounter with one’s own body and with others, has not let go of her since then. For her, ohashiatsu has become a life principle and part of herself. Back in her adopted home of Vienna, she wants to pass on to other people what she has learned in Ohashi’s courses and in close cooperation with him personally.
„Touch for Peace“ is the institute’s motto.
„I want all people to feel peaceful, happy and healthy, and that will always start with a touch,“ explains Ohashi, who consciously describes what he is doing as „starting an educational process“.
He is now an internationally respected and well-known ambassador of the Eastern healing arts, a humorous teacher who inspires people all over the world with his energy, his great knowledge and his visions for his positive philosophy of life.
“Most people these days think there is something wrong with them, that something is wrong, and that attitude encourages them to feel inferior and guilty. My way is different. I think we don’t have to change, every person is unique and already has everything you need to be happy.“
For Ohashi, the key to happiness is knowing your weaknesses and strengths, lovingly caring for your weaknesses, and capitalizing on your strengths. He tirelessly encourages people to embark on the Ohashiatsu adventure and thus on the path to self-knowledge and self-awareness. For him, the integration of centuries-old knowledge into our modern everyday life means that more and more people are empowered to make a contribution to peaceful coexistence on earth.
Laying on of hands – a natural instinct
Healing with the hands, the laying on of hands is a universal concept, a natural human instinct, from which shiatsu and acupuncture, among others, have evolved in Eastern cultures. Acupuncture uses needles, Shiatsu uses thumbs, elbows, knees and palms. But the general notion that shiatsu is nothing more than the application of intense pressure to discrete points on the body twists the truth. Shiatsu is based on a comprehensive Eastern medical system in which every human being is seen as a microcosm of nature, not unlike a garden, a dynamic, self-regulating system that transforms sunlight and water into living matter that grows with the cycle of the seasons, ripens, produces fruit and is composted. Through this process of transformation, the garden continuously maintains and renews itself. For centuries, people have been observing and describing this natural interaction, also for human life. An exciting way of seeing man as a garden in which the doctors act as gardeners, respecting the uniqueness of each garden, taking into account the shady areas and sunny sides, recognizing individual harmony and only fertilizing, watering and creating space to get out of the To support plants that have lost their balance in restoring their own order. And exactly this approach is the basic principle of Shiatsu. No medical or therapeutic help is offered. The physical or mental symptoms are not treated, they merely provide clues about disturbances in the body’s energy flow. Self-healing powers can be activated through Shiatsu treatments, in which the flow of energy is mobilized, stimulated and harmonized.
Energy is a central concept in Eastern medicine. Man, as a connection between heaven and earth, as an inseparable unit of body, mind and soul, has Ki, like all living things, which is the Japanese term for the life energy that runs through our body in meridians. The meridians form a networked system of energy channels on the surface and in the depths of the body. An unimpeded flow signifies physical, mental and spiritual well-being, mobility and advancement. If we shut ourselves off from the natural flow of life, the mobility in parts of our soul or our body stagnates, and the Ki flows too sluggishly or too quickly as a result, problems can arise and we become ill.
Everyone has their individual stagnation pattern, in which their way of thinking and feeling manifests itself, without feeling sick. Physical pain, which always includes mental pain, indicates a long-lasting or severe impediment in the flow of life energy. With Shiatsu, the energy flow on the surface of the body is touched, the physical pain that can occur during the treatment makes us perceive congestion. This is the beginning of sometimes painful developmental steps through which greater mobility and self-confidence can be gained.
Touch communication instead of body work
Ohashi has broken away from traditional Shiatsu, using touch communication instead of bodywork. Familiar with the concepts of the two Japanese Shiatsu teachers Tokujiro Namikoshi and Shizuto Masunaga, he developed a new method based on his many years of experience with this massage technique, which puts a lot of strain on his own body. “Ohashiatsu means no pressure, just mutual support, leaning against each other. We don’t call ourselves therapists and we don’t treat patients. For us, the focus is on the person giving Shiatsu.”
A concept that sounds easy, yet is one of the most difficult exercises for anyone beginning an Ohashiatsu training. We all want to help, give strength, treat, make a difference. It is precisely this charitable and possibly overbearing attitude that prevents equal exchange between giver and taker and makes it impossible for us to recognize how much we are receiving and learning from the taker. So you learn not to want to do anything, to be open, not to push, but to let yourself be carried by the body of the recipient.
Like a powerful dance
“The giver never sweats, jumps on the back of the recipient, does not scream and is never exhausted. Giving shiatsu is a meditation, an exercise, just like tai chi or the art of archery. As a result, the client usually feels great, but our primary goal is to make the giver feel good.”
And this impression is conveyed to the viewer when Ohashi creates the shiatsu treatment with elegant, flowing movements as a powerful dance that develops from the encounter of two life energies.
In ohashiatsu, the most important thing is that the giver is well prepared, that is, in good physical, mental and spiritual condition. The ability to act from the center of the body, the abdomen, the Hara, is essential. The echo of the life energy is received via the Hara, the hands as feelers, and it is recognized in which meridians the balance of the Ki must be restored so that the body can heal itself, following its own natural impulses. The quality of a Shiatsu session depends not only on the technical skills of the giver, but on the relationship that is established between giver and receiver, the compassion and respect for each other and the attitude that each person – unique in their strengths and weaknesses – for bears responsibility for himself.
“Massage and bodywork will become immensely important in the future. In western medicine, the human body is only touched for diagnostic purposes. But touching and touching gets the fountains of life flowing, surely we could cut medical bills in half. The human body is a mirror of our planet. So when you learn to respect and take care of your own health, you develop the same attitude towards other people and also towards all life on our planet.”
And that’s why Ohashi wants to bring as many people together as possible with Ohashiatsu, show them ways through which they can have a healthier and therefore happier existence, which ultimately leads to a peaceful life on earth.